Terrorists will ‘always get through the net as attacks become norm’, ex-NaCTSO head claims

The “sheer weight” of numbers of potential terrorists and increased frequency of attacks are stretching policing resources around the world to breaking point, a former head of the UK`s National Counter Terrorism Security Office (NaCTSO) has warned. No matter how hard security services work to foil plots, some will “always get through the net,” ex-Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) commander Chris Phillips believes. He admits it doesn’t matter how many police officers are available – the proliferation of the “bad guys” means there is a “good likelihood that you’re going to miss at least one threat”. The concerns from Mr Phillips, lead for NaCTSO between 2005 and 2011, come in the wake of hundreds killed in the last week from terror atrocities at Manchester Arena, Baghdad and Kabul. He added: “I think the worrying thing is that these attacks seem to be accelerating. “It’s not just a UK problem, this is a worldwide problem. When Manchester happened three other big terrorist attacks happened in other parts of the world, and Baghdad was hit by a massive car bomb. This is a big problem for the world.” Mr Phillips says as intelligence “comes and goes”, police and security services are forced to decide what information to pursue at any given time. “The one thing you have to do is learn from mistakes. When terrorist attacks happen there’s pretty much always some kind of failing somewhere but there are some reasons behind that,” he added. “The MI5, security services and police have stopped five attacks since the Westminster attack just a month ago. So, they’re working incredibly hard, [but] things will always get through the net. “It’s terrible so many people died but unfortunately the drumbeat of these attacks are happening at such speed now that I think we’re going to have to get used to this as almost a norm.” The comments by Mr Phillips come as Home Secretary Amber Rudd said missed chances to catch Manchester suicide bomber Salman Abedi will be investigated, following claims that US officials warned MI5 in January that he was planning an attack. The FBI had allegedly told British security services that Abedi was part of a North African terrorist cell based in Manchester. US federal agents had apparently been monitoring Abedi since 2016 and passed on information they had gathered in Libya, where his parents are from.